There are a lot of different visuals that come into play when discussing a lead generation strategy. The lead funnel. The sales pipeline. The marketing workflow.
For whatever minor differences, they all share the metaphor of water flowing through something. For lead generation this is appropriate. A single crack in your funnel or pipeline and your carefully designed system begins to fall apart.
Over the past few years, the amount of content and social media messaging companies are creating has exploded. The main goal of this has been to increase website traffic and draw in more and more leads. In fact, HubSpot found that the top marketing priority in 2014 and 2015 was increasing the number of contacts and leads.
Now marketers are starting to ask an even more important question, what are we doing with those leads? In 2016, the number one marketing priority is converting contacts and leads into customers.
Your funnel/pipeline/workflow are full of leads, but how many of them are coming out the other side as customers? Are there any leaks in your lead generation strategy? Here are four areas to optimize to make sure no qualified lead is falling through the cracks:
- Lead Capture
All of your inbound marketing works hard to grow an audience on your blog and social channels, but those follower counts don’t mean anything if you aren’t able to capture enough information to move the conversation forward.
This is one of the mistakes marketers make when trying to convert visitors and followers. The key is to only ask for enough information to move the conversation forward. Asking for too much information too early in the lead capture process can scare a potential lead away.
With the amount of marketing messages people are receiving on a daily basis, your audience is already apprehensive to give anyone their valuable contact information. Don’t make it difficult to exchange that information for whatever you are offering in return.
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Optimize Landing Page Conversions
Once you have an optimized and streamlined way of capturing lead information, avoid the temptation to overcomplicate it with a distracting landing page. Your landing page should clearly convey the value the lead will gain from providing their contact information. It should also be extremely clear on the action you’d like them to take. Unfortunately:
- 48% of landing pages contain multiple offers. Keep yours simple to increase conversions.
- Only 16% of landing pages are free of navigation bars. This gives your leads an option to leave your page without converting.
- Only 48% of marketers build a new landing page for each lead capture campaign. Each landing page should be customized to the specific offer and campaign you are using.
Creating the perfect landing page for your offer can be a major challenge for marketers. By measuring and testing different approaches, you can zero in on a strategy that works for your business.
- Have a Compelling Offer
If you’ve done your job correctly, your audience sees your company as a thought leader and a source of valuable information in your industry. The lead magnet is your chance to deliver on that promise.
While you may be able to capture your leads information with a great sounding title and an optimized landing page, it won’t do you any good if the magnet itself isn’t a valuable resource. You’ll have your leads information but you’ll have lost their trust. As you create different whitepapers, training videos, email courses and free trials, make sure you are asking whether or not this is content you’d be willing to pay money for.
Unsure of what your audience will find valuable? Using social media can give you insights into your audience’s preferences. By adding your follower’s social activities to create more enhanced lead data you’ll be able to develop much more targeted content.
As Jay Baer says, “the more you know about your customers, the more you can provide to them information that is increasingly useful, relevant, and persuasive.”
- Start Lead Scoring
According to Gleanster Research, 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy. Moving your leads effectively through your pipeline requires a complete understanding of where they are in the buyer’s journey.
This understanding can only come from developing a system for scoring your leads. Despite its importance, 79% of B2B marketers are not engaging in lead scoring.
Rather than giving each lead the same amount of attention and lead nurturing – which means some leads receive more than they should and the more important leads receive less – rate your leads based on activity such as:
- Subscribing to your blog
- Following you on social media
- Opening your email
- Filling out a form on your site
A lead scoring system allows you to qualify and rank your prospects to engage with them over social and other channels in a much more customized and engaging way.
No matter what you do, you will never convert 100% of the leads that flow through your funnel. However, by creating an automated workflow and carefully analyzing it to ensure there are no major leaks, you can greatly increase your company’s ability to convert.
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